Captivity

Publishers Weekly

Noyes (Angel and Apostle) is so constrained by, or perhaps so entranced with the true story of the 19th-century mediums Maggie and Kate Fox that she founders in crafting a satisfying novel based upon their lives. The story opens in rural New York in 1848, when teenage Maggie and her younger sister, Kate, claim that rapping sounds in their house emanate from a ghost whose murdered corpse is buried in the basement. It ends a decade later, after the sisters have achieved widespread fame for their séances. The Fox sisters are credited with inspiring the American Spiritualist movement, which grew rapidly for the rest of the century. Noyes includes some of the key figures who spurred the movement's popularity and aptly draws upon the themes of classism and sexism that influenced its leaders with wonderfully lavish period detail. Viewpoints alternate between Maggie's and her friend Clara Gill, an Englishwoman with a tragic past, but Clara's life seems hopeless from the beginning and the reader is kept at a frustrating distance from Maggie's inner thoughts. The legend of the Fox sisters is intriguing; however, Noyes adds little illumination to the nonfiction canon. (June)

Library Journal

In this new work of historical fiction, Noyes (Angels and Apostles) effectively offers two separate stories, both taking place in mid-19th-century America and England. First, there is the story of Clara Gill, a reclusive illustrator spinster shut away from the world at large in her father's home in Rochester, NY. Clara's sternness and acute observations often intimidate the few people with whom she does interact, and as she is no longer young, her prospects in life are diminished. The second narrative focuses on the strange circumstances concerning two young sisters, Maggie and Kate Fox, whose lives takes a decidedly notorious turn when it is believed that they are able to communicate with the dead. When Clara, her father, and the Fox family become intertwined, Clara finds in Maggie something of a friend, which prompts her to begin to examine her own earlier life in London. Never knowing whether Maggie and Katie are charlatans, Clara nevertheless admires the girls' tenacity in warding off skeptics and continuing to offer séances to interested people. VERDICT A novel of beguiling characters that probes both belief and the veracity of emotion, this endlessly fascinating work should be considered by all fiction readers.—M. Neville, Trenton P.L., NJ

The Barnes & Noble Review

When it came to tomfoolery, shams and mass deception, the Fox sisters were arguably the greatest of their day. Starting in 1848 in upstate New York, Leah, Maggie, and Kate persuaded both the gullible and the skeptical that they could communicate with the spirits of those who had “gone over Jordan.” Their séances and public channelings of the dead eventually gave rise to the Spiritualism movement, which continued to snowball even after Maggie and Kate later admitted it had all been a hoax. The “rappings,” they said, had been nothing more than the two of them cracking their knuckles and toes under the table.

In the novel Captivity, Deborah Noyes takes the tale of the teenage Fox sisters and interweaves it with that of the fictional Clara Gill, a middle-aged spinster who retreated from society after a love affair ended tragically. While the young girls are giddy when fame starts expanding their horizons (“We were born for this, [Maggie] thinks”), Clara has become “a ghost in her own home, neither awake nor asleep, aware of her own transparency.”

Noyes’s previous novel, Angel and Apostle, was a retelling of The Scarlet Letter from the perspective of Hester Prynne’s illegitimate daughter Pearl. In that book, Noyes proved it’s possible to revisit classic literature and give it a sharp, post-modern twist without resorting to zombies or werewolves. The remix of Hawthorne’s morality tale spiked the familiar with the fresh.

By the same token, Captivity is equal parts Henry James and Joyce Carol Oates. As they get deeper into their own game, the Fox sisters unfold like flowers, reveling in all that fame and fortune bring their way. The rappings, in particular, kindle a spark of feminism within Maggie, giving her a sense of self-confidence she never felt before. Soon, she’s faulting her audiences as captains of their own delusions: “What’s the difference, after all, between real and unreal when people react precisely the same way to either?” Her sly self-justifications poignantly capture the close relation between fraud and faith: “…there’s altogether too little mystery in this world, don’t you agree? I mean, what’s so terribly wrong with not knowing for certain one way or another…and believing anyway? It’s what the majority of the people prefer.”

Noyes wisely never lets the reader in on the mechanics of the fakery, neither does she leave us in doubt that it really was all a sham, a child’s game spun out of control. The novel isn’t concerned with the actual hocus-pocus of the clairvoyant sessions, but focuses on the tattered psyches of all the girls -- Maggie, Kate, Leah, and especially Clara as her life intersects with the Foxes. Soon, she too will be opening like a flower -- though in a much different way than the spiritual charlatans. Captivity takes its time building the backstory of all the characters, but once the shimmer of the book’s prose folds into the tension of the plot, the book becomes an unstoppable force, culminating in an unforgettable séance with Clara.

Near the end of the book, Maggie says, “For all that’s dubious in it, rapping made me someone.” Captivity is a cautionary tale, showing just how strong the iron grip of fame and self-delusion can hold a person prisoner. And, through Clara, it also illustrates how it’s possible to break free of those shackles and rejoin the world of the living.

--David Abrams